I meet a lot of lovely people as a result of writing two books, and I meet them via email, online, on social networking sites.

Recently on FB, I decided to restrict who I friended to people I’d met, people who I knew pretty well, people I’d worked with, went to school with, taught… you get the idea.

Some people have been upset that I de-friended them, & I’m very sorry they are.

Mostly I was tyring to protect my friend & family who often got friend requests from total strangers who “collect” friend on FB – usually for the sake of marketing something. Then someone told me about this ACLU quiz about FB’s Privacy Policy – or lack thereof – which everyone who uses FB should take.

Transgender people face pervasive discrimination, harassment and violence. Leslie Mora and Carmella Etienne—victims of hate crimes in two separate incidents in Queens—are witnesses to the violence that is perpetrated against people because of their gender identity or expression. In its most extreme form, such violence can turn deadly, as it did in the case of Lateisha Green, a young African American woman who was shot and killed, and whose death lead to New York State’s first hate crime trial and conviction stemming from the death of a transgender person. More→

Maybe the patrons who are against the policy can swap IDs at the door. Make a mockery of it. Everyone do drag next Friday & Saturday nights. When they get no business because of this policy, they’ll change it.

Damn, Jim Carroll died. I missed the news probably because he died on 9/11 this year, & that’s the day I avoid the news (because every clever media asshole thinks it’s a good idea to replay footage that still traumatizes me). Still, it’s fitting that this NYC icon died on 9/11, in a weird way; Jim Carroll might have died of a lot of things in his life – drugs, alcoholism, AIDS – but he didn’t. He made it to 60 & had a heart attack.

I’m getting reports that my RSS feed has gone wonky again, except that it’s not wonky everywhere. So I’m wondering for those of you who are having problems, what your feed reader is. So far, this seems like it’s a Google RSS Reader problem.

“So, was working for women always a dog walking on its hind legs sort of thing? News: Upper class educated w choices have fewer than they’d like right now, but, don’t worry, their friends will hire them. What about the women who never had the choice and had to balance the job and the commute?”

Exactly.So for the record: this article is not about how the recession is affecting women. It’s about how it’s affecting a tiny tiny tiny privileged minority of women.